The Pirate Bay vs. IFPI Denmark

Posted on | December 4, 2008 | No Comments

It is at the same time amusing and terrifying to follow the ongoing dispute between Swedish torrent-tracker The Pirate Bay (TPB) and the Danish branch of IFPI, the international record label association – personafied by Danish IFPI head, Jesper Bay. IFPI has run a court case against Internet provider Tele2 to have them prohibit their customers’ access to TPB on the grounds that TPB is illegally engaged in music filesharing activities. Fact is that TPB is merely a search engine, just as Google is – but that is, appearantly, in the eyes of IFPI, beside the point. With the court ruling, Denmark now joins China as one of the only countries in the world where Internet is censured.

That was the terrifying part. Now for the amusing part: As an immediate reaction, TPB – thepiratebay.org – has launched thejesperbay.org. A small site describing in 5 easy steps how to reconfiguere your browser to circumvent the blockade – thus dodgeing the bullet. It’s the copyright against the technology. The CEO against the nerds. BOY, that is THE battle you can never win, Mr. Bay.

Here are some interesting comments:

Bandbase.dk (Danish equivalent to MySpace)(in Danish)
Comon.dk (reaction from the Internet Provider)(in Danish)
Computerworld.dk (open letter from a music consumer to Jesper Bay)

I also enjoyed the piece on the subject in Danish newspaper Information by music reviewer Ralf Christensen (in Danish too, sorry). His best comment, in my opinion, is his reference to the court sentence against video tape recorder manufacturers in the US, who back in ’84 were also under allegation for contributing to illegal sharing – but were aquitted by the Supreme Court.
Same principle. Good point.

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